Hasta La Gadget!

When Verizon‘s FiOS Mobile iPad app first made its appearance back in 2010, users were told that it would allow live TV streaming, among other features. That didn’t pan out, however, with the app launching a short time after it was announced sans streaming. Now, a little over two years later, an update has finally been pushed out that allows users to stream 75 channels.

Until today, the FiOS app functioned only as a sophisticated remote, allowing users to browse TV and Video On Demand guides and program their DVR. While convenient, it was more of a letdown than anything else. This new update, available via iTunes, now allows streaming when the device is connected to the user’s home wireless network.

In order to use the service, iPad users must have a FiOS router from Verizon, as well as a valid Verizon username and password. Users must subscribe to both FiOS TV and Internet in order to watch the live streaming channels, which must be part of the TV subscription; you can’t stream TV channels you don’t subscribe to, for example. In order to view guide and What’s Hot info, the user must have a set top box.

The total of 75 channels users will have streaming access to includes Nickelodeon, tbs, HGTV, BBC America, A&E, HBO, Cinemax, MTV, TVland, and FOX. For those with the appropriate hardware, the app can also be used to set up a DVR, including scheduling recordings, viewing show statuses, and monitoring hard drive space usage. Unlike live channel streaming, this feature can be used from anywhere you have an Internet connection.

[via iTunes]

Verizon updates FiOS Mobile iPad app, gives access to 75 streaming channels is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
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America has a long tradition of public humiliation, but does shame really motivate people to change? Two psychological scientists decided to see if alcoholics’ feelings of shame about their addictions might actually interfere with their attempts to get sober.
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Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

I’ve been studying online communities since 1994, believe it or not. My master’s thesis was called “Escape to Cyberia: Subcultures as Agents of Change.” Go ahead, make fun of me for the title. It’s cool.

But back then, no one — or at least, very few people — studied online communities as fodder for social science. I set out to prove that people could actually form social bonds and even social structures — in this case subcultures — online. I then went on to show that what happens online can affect what happens in the “real world.” Several professors at the University of Chicago thought I was insane — “Real world vs. online? What is this, ‘Tron?!'” — but I aligned myself with a forward-thinker named David Laitin who, too, was ready to accept our future robot overlords.

At the time, Usenet wasn’t the dark, gritty back alley of the internet that it is now. Newsgroups were full of discussion, moderation and netiquette. They were, if you will, “where it was at.” I was a daily contributor and reader of alt.mountain-bike, where at least 100 new messages about trails, bike maintenance and burritos kept my attention. It was, you might say, just like Reddit. Sorta.

Continue reading This is the Modem World: We’re all a bunch of cranky old men

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